Weather, family responsibilities and work have conspired to keep me from doing my inaugural cook on my CG. This weekend is it!! I've got 4 racks of ribs sitting in the fridge and I'm so excited to get going.

Here's my problem. My wife picked up 4 racks of ribs for me at Whole Foods. I told her to get Spares, and she says she asked for Spare Ribs. What she came home with are St Louis ribs. Now in her defense the label says St Louis Spare Ribs.

I looked around here and I saw the 3-2-1 method is for Spares and 2-2-1 is for Baby Backs. What time do you guys recommend for St Louis style ribs on the CG w/ SFB? Thanks in advance.

Jim, St Louis Spare Ribs are regular spares with the cartilage tips cut off. This is the way I normally prepare mine for 3-2-1. I cook the tips the same way as I do the ribs. The tips can the be "snacked" on or used to flavor beans. usually leave the shirt on but if you remove it then you have a Kansas City style spare rib.

Thanks for the link. That was some very interesting & informative reading. I PDF'd it and saved it into my cooking references folder.

In reality what I have are 4 racks of what they are calling Kansas City Style in the Virtual Weber link. They are closer to Baby Backs in size than full untrimmed Spare Ribs. Each rack is about a foot long and 5" wide. These ribs are definitely smaller in size than the ribs shown in the "How to Smoke Spare Ribs" pg 134 in HTG. That is why I'm unsure about the time. How long do people do the Kansas City version for?

In doing reading here about foiling the ribs, it sounds like the tighter and more airtight you wrap them the better. I've never foiled ribs on the gas grille due to the shorter cook time. I do know the Weber rib racks I've used on my gas grill would have no problem with foiled ribs.

I smoked some ribs last weekend and did a side by side test with two racks. One I cooked 3-2-1 which was wrapped in foil for the two hour period and the other I cooked 3-0-3 6 hours unwrapped (no foil used ) and continued to spray with apple juice. Neither rack was falling off the bone or had mushy meat but both were very tender. The 3-2-1 rack was slightly more tender but the biggest difference was it had more of the fat rendered out of the meat than the unwrapped one.

The 3-2-1 was glazed with Apple-Jalapeno pepper jelly and the other with strawberry habanero. Both were delicious.

No, I've never flipped ribs, or brisket, or pork shoulder or BCC's in the smoker. As long as the heat is evenly distributed I leave it along. I have moved or rotated due to hot spots but never flipped. Now occasionally I will spritz the bottom by spraying up through the wire rack that they're sitting on but I've never been adimate about it or even kept track.

I'm with Bob, I have never flipped either; although, some friends of mine who do well at bbq competitions says its a good idea because it is supposed to help the meat cook evenly. I have never had to flip and my stuff comes out great! All-in-all, I thinks its just a matter of preference.